Saturday, October 31, 2015

Musical Interlude of the day



David Warren's essay on the ancient hymn:


It comes back to me in the memory of my flesh. My Down-syndrome child, listening with me; the sense of his presence in my arms and lap. One’s heart breaks sometimes, around such recollections: my child, Matthew, at age of two or three; so fragile and so perfect in his untutored love. So I played the music on my little machine, just as I had then: the Ave maris stella. It has plainsong at the top, and the verses fall out of it, exchanged between choirs in alternating rhythms as a mystical dance. I love the music but not so well the recording, whose forceful instrumentation makes the Christian hymn too courtly. I had remembered it as choirs, only; with solos less poised. But it is still sublime. We need to renew our appeal, to Our Lady, seen in the vision as star of the sea. For here we are in the chains of the guilty, in the darkness of the blind, weighed down, weighed under. Break chains, bring light, and purge us: O Mary, meek and chaste. Lead us to thy Son.

lyrics HERE

Friday, October 30, 2015

Stories below the fold

China is ending it's "one child" policy, but folks there might not be able to afford a second kid.

in the future: Depopulation, and probably their small occult euthanasia of the handicapped and eldely will go into full swing...

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Remember Voyager1? It entered interstellar space in 2012 and is still sending back data to puzzle the scientists.


Voyager 1’s crossing into interstellar space meant it had left the heliosphere — the bubble of solar wind surrounding our sun and the planets. Observations from Voyager’s instruments found that the particle density was 40 times greater outside this boundary than inside, confirming that it had indeed left the heliosphere. But so far, Voyager 1’s observation of the direction of the local interstellar magnetic field is more than 40 degrees off from what other spacecraft have determined. The new study suggests this discrepancy exists because Voyager 1 is in a more distorted magnetic field just outside the heliopause, which is the boundary between the solar wind and the interstellar medium. 

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SUPERCHICKENS!
https://s3.amazonaws.com/rapgenius/superchicken.jpg

evolving faster than scientist said they should

and there is an ongoing debate if they arrived in the Americas via Columbus, or via Polynesian visitors.

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PhysOrg reports that the NM National Guard helicopter transports a dinosaur skeleton.
Sgt. 1st Class Terrill Lee, from left, Sgt. James Ray and Staff Sgt. Noe Amador, secure the remains of a Pentaceratops, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2015, in the Bisti-De-Na-Zin Wilderness area south of Farmington, N.M. The fossils are encapsulated in heavy plaster jackets. They're being trucked to the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in Albuquerque. (Jon Austria/The Daily Times via AP)
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NYT: asking questions your grandmother used to answer:

Is it safe to eat moldy bread?

If you want to preserve some of the bread, Ms. Gravely said, “cut away a big section surrounding the mold with a healthy margin around it to make sure you got all of it.”
well, DUH.

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the good news you probably missed: In Colombia, peace is breaking out all over.

Over a decade of efforts to suppress criminal gangs and leftist rebels (and local militias organized to resist the rebels) has paid off. The drop in election violence is not surprising to most Colombians because it is in line with the general decline in criminal activity and lawlessness since 2000. After three years of negotiations FARC appears to have really made peace with the government and is preparing to demobilize its 7,000 armed fighters. ELN, with about 2,500 armed members, is willing to talk but has not actually begun peace negotiations yet. ELN is apparently feeling the heat from a population fed up rebellions and related drug gang violence that has left nearly 300,000 dead since it all began in the early 1960s. 
this was an area where some of the communist insurgents, who did a lot of the killings, morphed into drug gangs.
 the article has a lot of stuff about the socialist paradise, Venezuela, which like most socialist countries is slowly falling apart.

and the fact that the US is fracking, resulting in low oil prices is hurting too...

the low oil prices are an uncovered story, because one could say that the US (and to a lesser extent Saudi) is using the low prices as an economic war to hurt Iran, (and also Russia).

StrategyPage also has an article on the ongoing drug violence in Mexico and an opinion article on the US traveling the sea routes close to China's manmade Islands in the West Philippine Sea.

China is squaking about the US trying to use international sea lanes that they are trying to steal quietly...no it won't go to war: they sell the US too much stuff and even an embargo could tank their economy. Of course, Tony Blair representing the NWO and China are discussing how the world will drop the US dollar and let China take over the world's economy, so don't xpect a nuanced discussion on this.

Obama will blink first, so the Philippines will be the real loser in all of this. And those running for president are all from the usual families, so don't expect much change here.

By the way: I haven't heard a lot of squaks from the ecowarriors protesting this destruction of our reefs and fishing grounds by dredging and building fake islands.
Ditto for lack of protests when Russian bombers hit civilian hospitals in Syria.

The ecowarriors and anti war protests are only against pollution if it is done by capitalist or by America.

Don't mind me: I'm getting cynical in my old age.

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And no, I didn't watch the debate last night when the Republicans finally pushed back against the MSM bias.

Heh. If Romney had done this to Crowley, he'd be president today...

and Hillary might not be in trouble now for lying to cover the President during an election year, i.e. when he blew Benghazi by refusing protection and firing the Admiral who attempted to rescue them... and then blamed it on a video, when every gamer (and those who read the Wired article) knew Sean Smith left a message on a gaming site that he had seen professional terrorists casing the joint for an attack several hours before the bad guys arrived...

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Podcasts of the week

InOurTime podcast on the BBC is back. This week: The Empire of Mali.

I don't know if they will mention the controversy if Mali's navy reached the Americas (before Colombus), but the controversy that they inspired the Olmec heads is off about two milleneum.

on the other hand, there is a lot of stuff out there about DNA showing other DNA coming to the Americas... no, the Kennebec man was related to local tribes, but what about that funny "indigenous Australian" DNA in the Amazon basin? A lot of detail still has to be found...


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on a lighter note, ProfessorBob's podcast this week is about Napoleon redecorating his house in Elba...

Thursday, October 29, 2015

pumpkins?

Wikipedia commons


Pumpkins are not big in the Philippines (and in Africa the Pumpkins were what the US would call green squash).

But hey, thanks to globalization, one can get Pumpkin spice Latte at the local Duncan Donuts!

the CSMonitor has an article on the pumpkin spice fad in the USA.

and food blogger  Stephanie Ong has the recipe for both pumpkin spice and how to make pumpkin spice latte.

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but here, except for a few people, the big weekend holiday is Undas, to pray for the dead on Nov 1.

(in Catholic calender, it is All Saint's day on Nov1 and all Souls day on Nov 2) and visit the graves in the cemetaries to clean them up, place candles and flowers on the grave, and have a small picnic while you do that. Also to attend mass (although I might skip this: if it is too crowded and hot in church I tend to faint or get sick).

if you forget food, usually there are vendors who can sell you water/softdrinks and various snacks (and small toys or baloons to keep the kids from being bored). Usually the cemetaries are so crowded that you have to part outside and hike in to the grave.... Lolo couldn't walk that far, so the cops usually let us get inside using a tricycle (not car)....(elders are respected here in the rural Philippines).

Lolo's grave is not quite finished: After the second payment, they stopped working on it, and I refuse to pay them the final payment until the ceiling and floor is done. I had to get one of our staff to paint the metal pipes holding up the roof, because it was rusting and looked terrible, and I planted some bushes to make the front look a bit better. One of these days I'll post a photo.

Farts and fires and rice fields oh my

I hate to go to Manila because of the air pollution exacerbates my asthma.

And the huge traffic jams don't help. They have "alternate day" driving (according to your license) but it doesn't do much good.Possibly using electric jeepneys or hydrogen based ones will help a bit, but most local rich people use SUV's, and of course trucks are there delivering stuff and contribute to the pollution. What is helping is the new transit systems, using overhead trains that link to buses/jeepneys for local trips.

So when Joy and Ruby go to Manila, they have been staying with her relatives and commuting to Ruby's homeschool base for her extracurricular activities.

One result: Joy now has sore knees, from climbing up and down the stairs.

but below, I joked that farts and rice fields in rural area also contributed to global warming. (In cow/sheep rich New Zealand, the tax on animals who emit methane is called the fart tax by annoyed farmers).

And of course, organic rice etc is pushed by the gov't, but to kill weeds for organic rice you flood the paddies so that the weeds are destroyed and the rest are easly to hoe out of the soft mud. This results in a lot of the greenhouse gas Methane...The alternative is a dry way to farm, using herbicides...China did this in many areas and reduced their greenhouse emissions.

but now the "traditional" agricultural methods are coming to the world's attention: Slash and burn agriculture in Indonesia is polluting the air and even shutting down airports in SEAsia..

Mother Jones has a report.

 Indonesian President Joko Widodo cut short a visit to the United States and headed home to oversee efforts to extinguish a rash of epic wildfires that have engulfed his country.
Joko was in Washington, DC, for a photo op with President Barack Obama, to talk about climate change, and to promote Indonesia as a choice venue for foreign investors. His trip was also supposed to include a stopover in San Francisco for meetings with tech industry executives. But Joko's decision to return to Indonesia early underscores the challenges his country faces in stopping the worst deforestation on Earth—deforestation that is playing a critical role in global climate change.
MJ blames the fires on palm oil plantations, but this is outside my area of expertise, and they don't mention how many fires were started to plant palm trees and how many fires were started by local farmers needed fresh soil to grow food (something that could be reversed if they developed ways to enrich the soil using fertilizers etc).

Zombies and werewolves and bezerkers? No, only mentally ill.

From Medievalnet, an article on mental illness as described in the ancient Icelandic sagas.

and another article on zombies.

in other news: A grave of one of Nestor's ancestors has been dug up in Pylos....more HERE.


Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Family newsfa

One of the sons of a distant cousin shot and killed his brother last night, so the family is very upset. Sigh.

In better news: We went out for Pizza on Sunday to celebrate our brithdays. Afterward, I fell asleep and ended up missing Angi's birthday party.

Ruby and Joy went to visit her relatives Sunday...they came back yesterday afternoon to help with a pastor's conference, and afterward Ruby held a party with her friends from the church youth group.

We had pancit and cake for the staff to celebrate the birthdays here so I did sort of have a party.

Stories below the fold

MariaElenaVidal, from TeaAtTrianon, is planning her next book about her Filipina grandmother, and asking for donations to visit her relatives here

Sounds like her grandmother's life would make a good book, and there is a dearth of good books about Philippine life (most of the books in English are either written from a western point of view or else by locals who imitate the nihilistic style novels of the west in order to get published).

 I've only read one of her books (the Night's dark shade, via Scribd) and they are light but well researched historical fiction: easier to get through than the violent books by Bernard Cornwell et all and less porn than the Angelique series.


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Related item: Heneral Luna (the movie) is up for a foreign language oscar, and Ruby and most other folks here loved it.

She said unlike most local movies, which over do the heroics, it was very funny in parts but also sad.



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 DavidWarren has a "how the Irish saved civilization" type post, reminding Catholics that even if the West and the western church degenerates, that it will spout again, from the least likely places you could think of...

 Well, if the church in the USA survives, blame an Italian American nun in Alabama who took on the PC "amerchurch" types and got into deep trouble for it.
 When Roger Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles issued a pastoral letter she thought watered down the Real Presence, she critiqued him, point-by-point, on television -- and refused to offer a false apology, even when Cardinal Mahony's machinations got her threatened with interdict (the loss of the Sacraments) and the closure of her community. When still other bishops tried to gain control of EWTN and stifle her loudly orthodox voice, she famously said, "I'll blow the damn thing up before you get your hands on it." 

 But not all Catholic Christians live in the American Bible Belt: Cardinal Sarah pretty well said the same thing.

 “I have absolute confidence in the African culture. I have absolute confidence in the African faith and I am certain that Africa will save the family, that Africa will save the Church. Africa saved the Holy Family (cf. the flight into Egypt, ed.).

alas, I am not sure that the Philippines will side with them. Tagle is famous for being nicey nice and for "loving the poor" but unlike the now retired old leftie Bishop Cruz, I haven't seen him in court for libel because he called out the nefarious corruption by local politicians (or rather, the husband of a local politician).  Instead, he seems to be defending the "process" (read the rigging of the synod by the PC church)

full report here. Heh. 2/3rds of the bishops remain true to Jesus's position on marriage, so I guess it's not as bad as it seems.
But their editorial on the synod of the family, which is full of mushy double talk,  is only partly about that problem: Half of it is about climate change.

I wonder if the bishops realize that methane emissions from flooded rice fields is a major contribution to global warming? Ditto for waterbuffalo farts.

as for corruption: Not a peep.

I mean, it's nice to preach to "help the poor", but am I the only one who notices that this constant messages is aimed at the rich? Who preaches to the poor? Things like the nobility of hard work, don't steal, don't drink, be faithful to your wife, and that caring for your children and elders is a way to serve God? Or that these ideas not only help you serve God, but get you a job to get your family out of poverty?

Ah, but there are a lot of Protestant and Pentecostal types who do just his...So expect more pious Pinoys to turn Protestant in the coming years.

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if I remain Catholic, it is because of the Eucharist:



The Eucharist is the body and blood of Christ, and receiving communion is literally receiving Christ into ourselves, so that we can grow in holiness. Not just a symbol, or a psychological vague "receive Jesus"in our hearts" but an actual deed of receiving Jesus into our hearts, minds, and body (sacraments are using material things to help us grasp the spiritual reality).

The family: Moynihan facts vs Francis fuzzymindedness?

I'm still on my first cup of coffee, so I am bookmarking for later reading.

Father Z has links to all sorts of stuff on the conference on the family.

Cardinal Pell is not pleased...uh oh. 

My opinion? splitting the church into regional offices is only good if the churches remain Christian (i.e. like the Russian or Greek Orthodox churches, not like the "old catholic" churches or the British Anglicans, who have embraced all sorts of modern stuff, i.e. obeying the King or the cultural leaders rather than being an independent voice).

and I wonder if they discussed the old fights of church independence from governments, a problem that has split the church in China into a government obeying group and one who is Christian...

and why is the council on families discussing dismembering the church anyway?

I will have to read and ponder. There are many prophecies, both Catholic and Protestant, that the church will schism again, but again for Catholics: Been there, done that.

As for family: The NewBooks podcast has one on the Moynihan report.
that report was on the breakdown of the black family in the USA, and it was controversial, possibly because as a sociologist he described what he saw instead of describing what they thought he should have reported. And his dire predictions came true, and family breakdown has spread to the  lower class white community. Again, saying this is an insult and judgemental, but one wonders if the church, instead of talking about compassion and breaking up the church to let the PC Germans rewrite the bible, might have talked about family breakdown, including the economic problems that exacerbate it.

Many of my patients didn't marry their boyfriends because he didn't have a job. The jobs were exported. And this was part of the plan of the globalists, if I read Robert Reich's book on globalism correctly.

Here in the Philippines, the problem is that fathers and mother work overseas, and kids are brought up by extended family. Ah, but what happens for the next generation

And this overseas problem is spreading: Not just India, Pakistan and the Philippines, but now the migrants are from Nepal and various African countries. Africa already had a problem since colonial times from men working in mines, etc,
where wives were not allowed.

Was this discussed?

probably not since a group of bishops a few days after the conference came out with a resolution for the world to go carbon negative. Economic collapse. Way to go fellahs!

and the Pope tweeted that "corruption is evil", so I guess the church is against corruption. Now if the bishops should only name names (although, when the old leftie Archbishop Cruz here did name names here a couple years ago. he got sued for libel. He was lucky he wasn't shot, as some Protestant ministers were...)

anyway, if you read the MSM it sounds like the conference was about making the western yuppies comfortable in their sins rather than recognizing the stresses on families. But then I haven't read the full report.

In summary: I'll have to read more before despairing, but I did get my rosary out last night to pray the church survives.

Why? Well, Pell shows how a conference can be hijacked

You had this year 45 papal-appointed delegates who appeared to swing the vote. It’s said those controversial paragraphs on divorce and remarriage probably wouldn’t have passed without those papal appointees.That’s very possible

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/edward-pentin/cardinal-pell-on-the-synod-the-final-report-and-decentralization/#ixzz3poEO4sE8

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Film of the week



The Destiny. If you have good bandwidth, watch it in HD...it's lovely and sad

Bilbo plants a tree

Just for nice...an outtake that didn't get into the extended edition.





no, it's not Tolkien, it's Peter Jackson trying to put a "quiet" moment in the battle to remind us what is at stake. But alas it probably didn't fit well into the movie's flow and was cut.

history Stories around the net

David Reneke writes about when a meteorite hit German in 1492, and was seen as a bad omen...
the article includes information about the yearly meteor showers.


another blogpost: don't tell Mark Watney: Maybe we can't colonize Mars.

but this estimate was from students at a VIP university. Given the history of Russian and American astronauts making due with what was available (Watney wasn't the only one who survived by using duct tape) one wonders if the students are a bit naive here.

for example:

according to the MIT graduates, over the course of 130 months, the need for spare parts would consume 62% of the payload space on resupply missions. This leaves little room for the essentials, such as food and medicine.
why couldn't they just use a 3D printer for a lot of these parts? Wouldn't that take less room than storing all those parts?


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attention GWTW fans:

the real Melanie 

Melanie’s character is based on Margaret’s cousin Mattie Holliday of Jonesboro.... Many know the story of the star crossed cousins Mattie and John Henry and how Mattie Holliday became a Nun and took the name, “sister Mellie” and John Henry left Georgia because of his poor health and found fame as John Henry (Doc) Holliday of Tombstone, Arizona


heads up TeaAtTrianon

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when is genocide not genocide? When it's against people who are not politically correct. From CIC:

  • In 1644, England’s Puritan-dominated Parliament ordered that any Catholic found in arms in occupied Ireland be executed, thereby initiating a genocidal campaign against the indigenous people.

yeah. This always comes to mind when I hear about the outcry against ISIS. Uh, history anyone? This was only one episode of British genocide against Ireland (and others in the UK who didn't agree with them. Not just the Pilgrims and the genocide against English Catholics, but eventually the Highland clearances).

an aside: I am listening to an audiobook about the Hemings (The black relatives of Thomas Jefferson). on ScribD...

 Two things came to mind:

One, in the introduction the author was aghast about how he alloted blankets and food to his slaves, which she interpreted as treating slaves like inferiors who should have no choice in the matter.

My interpretation: Well, if they were better off than the Irish peasants, where landlords didn't know or care if their workers had food and blankets...and on top of that, he could throw them out and tear the house down when they couldn't pay the rent.

another question came to mind: ah, but what happened when the slaves were "liberated"?Many ran away (of course). But where did they go, what did they eat?

This NYTimes article suggests an untold story of starvation and disease:

At least one quarter of the four million former slaves got sick or died between 1862 and 1870, Professor Downs writes, including at least 60,000 (the actual number is probably two or three times higher, he argues) who perished in a smallpox epidemic
more here.

Similar to the deaths of the fleeing Irish after the potato famine, thrown off their land with nothing to eat, dying by the side of the road or in coffin ships.

Stuff to remember when Europe hyperventillates about the refugees fleeing to a safe haven away from the middle eastern wars...

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there is a "meme" going around asking if it would be ethical to kill Hitler as a baby, and maybe save lives 50 years later.

well, the answer of course is no.First of all, you don't kill innocent babies, no matter what (remember that next time you read PeterSinger saying infanticide is ethical).

Another practical reason: Given slightly different circumstances maybe he would not have been a bloody tyrant. (maybe he could have won that art scholarship, or maybe been killed in WWI, maybe if he had been a better Catholic,  he wouldn't have caught syphilis as a student, a disease which may have caused his mania in the 1940's,  or maybe if he hadn't been so crazy, then Gellie would have married him instead of killing herself or getting him mad enough to kill her in a fight)

And of course maybe if he was dead, another "leader" would have arisen.

But here is another question for you: What if Jefferson Davis' mom had used birth control?

From CIC:

  • Jefferson Davis’ middle name was “Finis,” apparently conferred by his parents to indicate that he would be the last of their children, of whom he was the tenth.


It's not just ISIS and the Ukraine

China is slowly stealing the west Philippine sea from the Philippines, Brunai, Viet nam etc.

of course it's illegal (treaty of 1994? What treaty of 1994?)

and the ghost in the story:

 China will back off when the United States (or even Japan or Taiwan) move through disputed waters with warships but will continue to go after unarmed “intruders”. The Philippines and its neighbors need an ally who is willing and able to stick around and get China to back off. So far, such an ally has not appeared.

here, things are back to almost normal.

we have a partial harvest in our higher fields, which is good news

Bookmarked for later reading

I am catching up with all the worldly news I missed when living (literally) off the grid. So bookmarking for later reading (on my tablet).

GetReligion analyzes the way the MSM reported the Pope's synod, and questions if the name calling is a quote or just the opinion of the reporter:

Where did this "tea party" image come from? Who is being quoted here?
Who, precisely, is comparing the vast majority of the bishops from Africa with the Tea Party Movement (which in American media is usually code language for racism and other forms of irrational bias)? Is this a quote or material provided by the Post team itself?
FatherZ 's latest comments are HERE.
the Pope as Saruman? Works for me....

The Pope excoriates bishop's with closed hearts.

He said the synod had “laid bare the closed hearts which frequently hide even behind the Church’s teachings or good intentions, in order to sit in the chair of Moses and judge, sometimes with superiority and superficiality, difficult cases and wounded families”.

all of this sounds nice, until you realize it was the soft headed hearted bishops who forgave (over and over again) then reassigned those poor "wounded" priests who schtupped young boys...

Forget those thorny problems of sin that are harming people.... notice the ravages of the sexual revolution that decimated families, aborted babies, left millions of kids fatherless (and in poor countries, left them living as street kids).

Let's get into the real problems of the day: climate change.

and no, unlike that hard hearted stuff about adultery and marriage, it isn't based on what Jesus said: it is just their political opinion so you can disagree with it and remain a good Catholic.

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there are so many meetings about climate change that one never hears about. AViewFromHere reports on the latest preconference from Bonn.


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Millions of girls aborted in China, so the young men lack wives. No problem, says one professor: Just legalize polyandry...

there is a poorly reported back story about buying wives from SE Asia, or kidnapping girls from rural China to marry men in China. In Korea, a lot of rural farmers marry such brides...

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AnnAlthouse also has a link to an article lauding the feminist ideals of "talking circles"...and genderless pronouns.

Hmm...Tagalog and Shona have common pronouns for a person, but they don't seem to have a problem distinguishing men and women...

The problem is of course that outsiders viewing a new culture don't see the subtleties, but project their own ideas into the culture.

. Discussion circles are not exactly democratic in reality because too often the weak are pressured into not giving their opinion. (for example, young married ladies rarely have a say in the circles, which are run by the elder wives who have power over them in real life i.e. mother in laws or the senior wife. Oppose them in public, and your life at home is made hell).

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Instapundit links to a blog quoting Heinlein's 1973 speech to Annapolis graduates about the need for warriors, and it's not exactly politically correct (but alas it's true).

One of their (the pacifist's) favorite quotations is: ‘Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.’ What they never mention is that the man who made that sneering remark was a fat, gluttonous slob who was pursued all his life by a pathological fear of death.
uh, tell us what you really think, Mr Heinlein...

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first Abraham Lincoln, now Elizabeth Bennett:



What is it with zombies in culture? A subconscious idea that maybe things are out of control and big brother won't help you when things get bad?

I don't know, but when it was dark here after the typhoon, and I was alone (the family was caught in Manila and couldn't get back) I do wish I still had Lolo's submachine gun in the closet, or at least my 9mm pistol instead of just the 70 year old 90 pound cook guarding the entire home/business compound at night...

Monday, October 26, 2015

almost back tonormal

City electricity and water came on last night.

school open and palenke is crowded with folks replacing stuff.

next weekend is AllSaints day so everyone will come home and visit cemetaries.

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

 we got up to signal 4 but our area was only signal3....heavy rain, and some trees down. But then they opened the gates of the irrigation dam upstream...and it flooded badly.

our house had 2 inche but luckily our bedroom did not flood....but we moved upstairs to sleep, along with about 20 neighbors. By 8pm the flood passed and they went home. The family was flooded out since they are closer to the river, but Lolo built our house on a small rise about3 ft anove the street. The neighbors also parked their cars in our garage, and I opened the partition into our meeting hall and two more went in there
no electricity, but we have a generator
No city water, but we restarted Lolo's deep pump and it pumps to ground level but not up to the rooftop tank, so we only have water when the generator is on.

so we are fine.

Saturday, October 17, 2015

Stuff from around the net

Top Ten Viking movies.

Number one? The 13th Warrior, based on a mixture of Beowulf and the (true) report on Rus Vikings by an Arab visitor.

Two more movies in the list are also Beowulf...an ANGLO SAXON poem based on a Danish story, 300 years before the big Viking push, but hey, some of those mentioned in Beowulf are mentioned as killing their rivals and raiding peaceful people so I guess it's okay.

and a link to an interview with Bernard Cornwell on the new miniseries The Last Kingdom.

more about Vikings HERE.

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Big Brother alert:
want to change behavior? Nudge people.

Full Report at the White House site HERE.

Your tax dollars at work.

It works for young folks, But I am glad to say that it didn't work for docs.

Not mentioned: who is behind the daily two minute hate posts  on Facebook.

Well, it works for me: I avoid facebook...

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The "heretic Pharoah" is revered by many as an idealist, but previous studies showed the common people working there suffered from malnutrition, and now we see skeletons from those executed were also suffering from overwork and malnutrition.

Gretchen Dabbs of Southern Illinois University thinks that the wounds may have been inflicted with a spear from behind as part of a physical punishment of 100 lashes and five wounds that is described in an ancient wall carving and other texts. The skeletons also show signs of joint disease and malnutrition. 
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Dark age history is being rewritten:. SP reviews a new book on Theodoric.

Prof. Arnold (Tulsa) argues that Theoderic largely revived many old imperial institutions and practices to the extent that his kingdom was almost a “restored” version of the Roman Empire in the west. While doing this, Arnold also reminds us that Late Antiquity still suffers from the negative “Dark Ages” created by Renaissance and Enlightenment scholars obsessed with the perceived glories of the Classical era. He points out how the image of the king acquired Roman trappings, royal legislation protecting Roman institutions and even strengthening them, and particularly the regularization of relations between the Gothic and Roman elements of the kingdom.
or you can just listen to this older one, a Librivox recording on Youtube...

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bbc laments that the US hasn't eliminated the Black Plague.

Well, can you imagine the outcry by the city born Greens if you suggested we kill a couple hundred thousand cute Prairie dogs to save the lives of a couple of Navajos? (/s)


If you work on the Navajo reservation, you expect to see a couple cases a year. And they do trace the vectors. Tony Hillerman's book The First Eagle uses this as the basis for his book

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The latest press manipulation at the "Family" synod in Rome is this post of the day about a kid who took half the host and gave it to his father, who was not allowed to receive because he had been divorced.

the news reports that all the bishops were in tears over the story. Really? So where are the tears about the boys whose lives were destroyed by Danneels and his ilk....

If you believe this was "spontaneous", I have a bridge in Brookyn to sell you.

And don't blame the believers:  Blame St. Paul. It's biblical.


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Backstory on the "spontaneous" attacks by Israelis who dare to fight back against those who attack them

Iran's proxy Hamas complains that the Palestinian run government on the west Bank has arrested some of their troublemaking terrorists.

in other words, the new Palestinian uprising is not about the Palestinians, but a way to demonize the Israelis in the press, discourage the Saudis from pushing peace with Israel, encourage Iran to restrart sending them money and weapons and also to help overthrow the Palestinian authority and let Hamas take over.

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another day, another typhoon...

PAGASA: MANILA BULLETIN

it will hit north of us...we are signal 2:

the real danger is that we are downstream from the mountains where it will hit, so expect flooding over the next few days. And it's harvest time.

No rain yet, but cloudy outside.

No, it's not global warming: it's normal. But if you want to send a couple million dollars of aid, our crooked politicians will thank you: next year is election year, and they need money to buy votes.




Friday, October 16, 2015

Family news

Joy has been in Manila with Ruby for the last few days. Presumably she will be home today, since a typhoon is due to hit.

I don't know if the typhoon will affect the harvest, since Kuya took over all of the farm and won't let me or Joy know what is going on.

Dita was staying late, but last night she slept here for my safety.

Yes, because a 90 pound 4 foot 11, 70 year old cook makes a great body guard.

Actually, since she is related to half the taxi drivers in town, no one would dare hurt her, for fear of payback. Me, no problem.

Sigh. I gotta get a gun....

Combat Barbie call your office and other military stuff

The good news: The military is hiring more women, meaning women will get the educational advantages that the military offers to lower middle class Americans.

The bad news: The "Draft women" meme is about equality, not about military preparedness.

Women will eventually have to register for the draft if "true and pure equality" is to be realized in the U.S. military, Army Secretary John McHugh said Monday.
"If your objective is true and pure equality then you have to look at all aspects" of the roles of women in the military, McHugh said, and registration for the draft "will be one of those things. That will have to be considered."
silly me. The objective of the military is not "true and pure equality": the real objective of the military was about war.

But you wouldn't know it from articles like this analysis, that assumes women are male carbon copies, and leaves out minor problems like would you think it's equality for women to be killed or injured in combat? And it ignores biologically related items like inter unit romance, menstruation, pregnancy, rape (especially if captured), and of course upper body strength.

There is a real problem in the US, in that the elites no longer join the military, and tend to look down on the type of Americans who do. It is also a problem because it means that few veterans are in Congress, and many "elites" don't even know anyone who has served, meaning they miss the little details that are obvious to those serving but left out in "expert" analysis.

It says a lot that Combat Barbie was British:

The dirty little secret is that war is about killing bad guys, and in modern warfare, to do it more efficiently and quietly so that the MSM doesn't call you a murderer.

as Jim Webb discovered

“In fact, seeing the reaction to my father’s story in recent days has highlighted for me the almost stunning level of ignorance that the general public has about war. CNN introduced him as a ‘war hero,’ and yet people were surprised and even uncomfortable when they were given a glimpse of what that might have entailed. . . . This country has been at war for almost 15 years, and as I think about the ridicule leveled at my father in the past 24 hours, I can’t help but imagine what these same people must think about the service of my own generation. In their eyes, did we simply spend some kind of twisted ‘semester abroad’ in a place with plenty of sand, but no ocean? Or conversely, do they ignorantly dismiss our experiences, as they have my father, as those of cold callous killers?”

StrategyPage notes that women are in the military, but that there are practical reasons they are not in certain combat roles:  (think biology related problems, especially the high injury rate) and they sarcastically note that those in charge of pushing the meme are not combat veterans.

StrategyPage's essay here will fill in the blanks...and read this one. and this one.

But when civilians with little hands on military experience push quotas etc. reality will push back.

StrategyPage: reality:

A lot of the combat operations experienced by women in Iraq involved base security or guard duty. Female troops performed well in that. These were jobs that required alertness, attention to detail, and ability to quickly use your weapons when needed. Carrying a heavy load was not required. In convoy operations women have also done well, especially when it comes to spotting, and dealing with, IEDs (roadside bombs and ambushes). Going into the 21st century, warfare is becoming more automated and less dependent on muscle and testosterone. That gives women an edge, and they exploit it, just as they have done in so many other fields.


But the draft? No that is silly, not just for women but for men:  because modern war requires brains and expertise, not bodies to be sent home in body bags. What are they thinking of? Pickett's charge?

 Going into the 21st century, warfare is becoming more automated and less dependent on muscle and testosterone. 


Another item not being discussed:
Most of the military support services (cooking, cleaning, laundry, nursing), was outsourced to military draftees during the days of the draft because it was cheaper than hiring civilians  and many women in the military joined these support units.

Nowadays, you can just farm it out to civilians, by subcontracting Americans, hiring locals or just import Filipinos etc to do the cooking and driving.

In the "good old days" people who did this were called "Camp followers", and their use is often not noticed in official histories except as footnotes about the "supplies" being captured and destroyed by the enemies.

----------------------
news you can use: Gizmodo: How many laser pointers would you need to kill a human? No, it's not a very efficient home made weapon: you would need 20,000 laser pointers to do it.


laser weapons are being worked  on to kill satellites etc. but the way to go is actually to use an EMP type weapon.

and yes, you can make one of them at home. link2




----------------------

some compare the civil war in Syria to the Civil war in Spain in the 1930's. Back then, the elites cheered on the communists, but usually ignored or covered up the atrocities done by their pet commies: Orwell pointed some of these out, but even he hated Franco, whose atrocities were well known.

So what would have happened if the communist side won?

EdDriscoll points out that such a victory would have had larger implications in the following decades, linking to two articles that discuss the "what if's"....

For example the Hitler Stalin pact would have allowed Hitler to get Gibraltar...which would have cut off supplies to the British army in North Africa defending the Suez canal....

------------------------------







Thursday, October 15, 2015

Cyberwar for Dummies

...

some of this sounds like the DieHard film where all the infrastructure was shut down by hackers.

Lots more at StrategyPage. Their most recent stuff:

LINK
Russian hackers know where you live

LINK
Americans got lots of stuff on ISIS bad guys because they don't use secure computers..

and China etc. doesn't worry because there is little push back for stealing.

my federal records were among those stolen, and so I now have "insurance" just in case they steal my money.

And of course, this doesn't include the problem that anyone with half a brain can go to our family page on Facebook and find that Lolo graduated from Frostbite Falls High school.

You want something scary? Look at your "history" of searching or viewing and remember someone can find them all.



PBS is due to have a special on it. Since we don't get PBS, and it takes a couple of years for NOVA to get on youtube, it means I will have to illegally download it or try to watch it on a streaming site (which here go on and off thanks to lousy connectivity).

Except there are rumors about that Pacific trade agreement which could stop illegal downloads (which merely means we have to buy new movies, straight from the Chinese pirates, at the Palenke for fifty pesos)

Podcast of the week

Improable Research has a podcast 


this week:

Podcast #33: Make sure colonoscopy patients will not explode


cites this article:

 / “Colonic Gas Explosion During Therapeutic Colonoscopy with Electrocautery,” Spiros D Ladas, George Karamanolis, Emmanuel Ben-Soussan,World Journal of Gastroenterology, vol. 13, no. 40, October 2007, pp. 5295–8. / 

Here comes... the paramedic

From the CSMonitor:

Paramedic goes to help family hurt in an accident on the way to her wedding.
Marcy Martin Photography via AP

CLARKSVILLE, TENN. — When Sarah Ray's father and grandparents were in a car crash on the way to her wedding reception, the off-duty Tennessee paramedic rushed to the scene in her wedding dress."My dad called my husband and said there had been an accident," Sarah Ray said. "All he told him was there had been a wreck, and the car was totaled. We didn't know anything about injuries."...... "I just hate that everyone uses the word 'hero,' " she told the Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle. "It's not heroic. That's just what we do every day, and it was family. I believe any other first responder would do the same thing. It just happened that I was in a wedding dress."

More HERE. 


It's a weird world after all

The Other McCain keeps an eye on the absurdities among the neurotics in feminism, and reveals to us that the term mental illness, chemical imbalance, or neurosis are out: The new term is "neruodivergent".

and, being a common sense male chauvanist pig, he comments:

 Here, let’s consult Wikipedia:
There is a neurodiversity movement, which is an international civil rights movement that has the autism rights movement as its most influential submovement. This movement frames autism, bipolarity and other neurotypes as a natural human variation rather than a pathology or disorder, and its advocates reject the idea that neurological differences need to be (or can be) cured, as they believe them to be authentic forms of human diversity, self-expression, and being.
In order words, these people aren’t crazy, they’re just “diverse,” and it isoppressive — a violation of their civil rights — to expect these kooks to behave like normal people. They are certified Special Snowflakes™ and how dare you judge them? Society must accept these “authentic forms of human diversity,” and if their “self-expression” takes the form of becoming tattoo-covered bisexual prostitutes posting nude selfies all over their Tumblr blog, only a hateful and intolerant bigot would criticize this “neurodivergent” behavior.

reminds me of Orwell's observation

...here is the horrible —- the really disquieting —- prevalence of cranks wherever Socialists are gathered together. One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism’ draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.


Come to think of it, StPaul said something to the effect to watch out for these types.

----
update: Read the complete essay by Orwell, who brings up how socialism meant different things to different folks:

To the ordinary working man, the sort you would meet in any pub on Saturday night, Socialism does not mean much more thanbetter wages and shorter hours and nobody bossing you about.
he then notes the people looking for a cause who join these movements:
-the kind of people I have been discussing; the foaming denouncers of the bourgeoisie, and the more-water-in-your-beer reformers of whom Shaw is the prototype, and the astute young social-literary climbers who are Communists now, as they will be Fascists five years hence, because it is all the go, and all that dreary tribe of high-minded women and sandal-wearers and bearded fruit-juice drinkers who come flocking towards the smell of ‘progress’ like bluebottles to a dead cat. The ordinary decent person, who is in sympathy with the essential aims of Socialism, is given the impression that there is no room for his kind in any Socialist party that means business. 
and here is the part that the Democratic party needs to note:

The ordinary man may not flinch from a dictatorship of the proletariat, if you offer it tactfully; offer him a dictatorship of the prigs, and he gets ready to fight...

hmmm...maybe we should bring back the monasteries. Flannery O'Connor once quipped that the problem with the (Fundamentalist) Christians in the US was that they left their true believers in charge, whereas the Catholics isolated them in monasteries and convents, so they could leave ordinary people alone.

The joke about Catholics is that our rules are strict, but we don't always follow them, figuring God's mercy (or Mama Mary) would get us into heaven after awhile in purgatory.

Bifur loses his ax

TORN reviews the Hobbit 3 extended edition.

Bifur finally loses the axe in his head when he head butts a small Troll, and they get stuck together. Several others come to try and pry them apart, and it’s not until Bombur throws in his weight that not only do we get Bifur and the Troll separated, but the Axe Head has come out. Bombur tries to return it, but we finally hear Bifur speak, about how he wants nothing to do with the Axe Head. Brilliant little way to resolve that issue.
and it includes Thorin's funeral...

A few good scenes, but most of the "extended" part is gore and battle scenes.

Guess I'll save my money.

Mark Your Calenders

October 14th is Winnie the Pooh's 89th birthday.

Brian Sibley reports on Winnie's influence in his life, and links to his podcast (which is on Soundcloud)

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

The "WAGD" stuff is SOOOO last year

This year's meme is:

https://tysonadams.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/science-the-shit-out-of-this.jpg



No the movie hasn't opened here yet, but I read the book. When faced with certain death, you find a solution. It's a theme as old as the Odyssey...


It's like an article today lamenting that if "we" don't do X to stop global warming, all these cities will be under water.

Well, there are other solutions then to de-industrialize the world into the 17th century and give lots of money to corrupt third world politicians poor countries to stop the damage.

One is reminded of the Ehrlich vs Julian Simon wager.

In 1968, Ehrlich published The Population Bomb, which argued that mankind was facing a demographic catastrophe with the rate of population growth quickly outstripping growth in the supply of food and resources. Simon was highly skeptical of such claims, so proposed a wager, telling Ehrlich to select any raw material he wanted and select "any date more than a year away," and Simon would bet that the commodity's price on that date would be lower than what it was at the time of the wager.....
Between 1980 and 1990, the world's population grew by more than 800 million, the largest increase in one decade in all of history. But by September 1990, the price of each of Ehrlich's selected metals had fallen. Chromium, which had sold for $3.90 a pound in 1980, was down to $3.70 in 1990. Tin, which was $8.72 a pound in 1980, was down to $3.88 a decade later.[4]As a result, in October 1990, Paul Ehrlich mailed Julian Simon a check for $576.07 to settle the wager in Simon's favor.
and if President Obama wants to move America into the 17th century with his green policies, well China is waiting in the wings to take over.

And yes, I am against pollution (a big problem in China) but as my husband reminded me: You can't eat the scenery.

Once a country is a bit more affluent, and a bit more moral (Pope Francis take note) you enable industry to thrive and NOT pollute.

Or is this too complicated for a country obsessed by the Kardashians and their two minute hates on facebook?


Good news about the NWO

USAToday editorial by General Petreus and Micheal O'Hanlan of the Brookings Institute remind us that the US Military only was a moat to defend the castle, but allowed the western democracies to flourish and pretty well eliminate poverty in the world.

A few basic realities about the modern world need to be remembered. The post-World War II international order set up by U.S. and other key world leaders 70 years agoproduced more economic growth in more places on earth, benefiting a far higher percentage of the human race, than had any previous global order in any period in history for which we have data.
As policymakers and leaders establish priorities for 2016 and beyond, attention to economic fundamentals should play as big a role in their thinking as crisis management and domestic political maneuvering.
and they conclude with this:

It is all too easy to conflate the temporarily important with the truly significant issues in today's political discourse. It is also easy to view the latest crisis as the be all and end all. But attention to our economy and its core foundations will probably be the most important legacy of political leaders today — as has often been the case in the past. We would do well not to lose sight of this historical truth.
Mike Duncan's podcast on the French Revolution emphasizes the economic problems behind the collapse of the monarchy there, for example.

The Russian economy, which was actually starting to thrive at the time, collapsed due to WWI, allowing a communist take over. And of course the depressions of 1923 and 1930's were behind the Nazi/fascism takeovers.

And as China has embraced the NWO and this has led to it's economic strength, and it's economic imperialism might be a good sign for Africans, whose economies have been stifled by socialism and green do gooders who kept out the green revolution so locals could remain "traditional" i.e. in poverty.

Someone tell Pope Francis. Heck, someone tell Glenn Beck.

Not everything in the NWO is evil.

from the Atlantic:


If the Pope really wanted to help people out of poverty, he'd not only strengthen the family but condemn corruption and drugs, both of which are fueling a lot of the violence in the world.

What, you didn't know that Drugs were funding the Taliban, and smuggling oil and antiquities is funding ISIS and others behind the war in the middle East? Or that corruption is the major problem in China that threatens the stability of that country?

The real question here is if China will take over the Philippines, or just bribe politicians to let them take over our resources.

and of course Africa is being pushed into the modern world by China.

and then there is this:



yeah, along with Africans, even the Chinese are sending missionaries to Europe to convert the heathens.

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Cat Item of the day

How to weaponize your cat to steal your neighbor's WIFI passwords.



During a three hour trip through the neighbourhood, his pet cat Coco mapped 23 unique wi.fi networks, including four routers that used an old, easily-broken encryption and four routers that were left unprotected entirely 
more HERE. at Wired


Coco, modeling the WarKitteh collar.  Gene Bransfield

it's a 2014 story, linked from Instapundit.

Oil ignorance

one blog I read (which shall be nameless) linked to a left wing magazine that is quite famours (which I refuse to link to) that printed an article that complained the US has not intervened against Boko Harum because they are black and attack people in a country without oil.

This follows the meme: Racist Americans don't care about black people  and evil Republican don't care about any country without oil (uh, silly me. I thought President Obama was a Democrat but then what do I know?)

Except....

Nigeria is one of the major oil producers in the world.

WIKIPEDIA lists them as number 13, just below Kuwait. And if they could control the corruption, they will increase production.

(and guess who is the world's number one oil producer? The USA...followed by Saudi and then Russia.)

And although the headlines shout about each terror kidnapping, actually there is a lot going on there, especially since the new, less corrupt Muslim president took over.

StrategyPage articles on Nigeria.

their latest report is slightly optimistic.


The reason I quote StrategyPage is because it is usually correct in it's assessment of what is actually going on in places that you rarely read about except in headlines.

you know that part I quoted above about the US now being the world's largest oil producer?

StrategyPage reports that it has caused problems for Iran. They will get a lot of money with sanctions being lifted, but it might not counter the loss of oil revenue since US exports mean the price of oil is low.

Family rant. Just ignore.

 This Reuters report compares Catholics who hold to tradition as the same as hard line communists, and Pope Frances as Gorbechev, who is trying to open a moribund institution to new ideas.


The essay mentions the problem of polygamy in Africa, but the way we approached it in Africa was the same as the pre Vatican II catholics approached divorce: You keep going to church and keeping the commandments and rely on the mercy of God.

Or to put it more cynically, as Madam De Montespan once quipped when someone said how could she fast during Lent when being the King's mistress: Well, just because I break one commandment doesn't mean I will break all of them.

Same here.

Just ignore the innocent victims of divorce, because parents are supposed to be free to do their thing. A lot of marriages break up because of financial problems, but more do so from immaturity where drink/drugs/adultery is considered okay by one spouse, while the other spouse tries to keep the kids safe.

Now, if I could only convince that "who am I to judge" doesn't mean it isn't a sin to give Lolo's hard earned money to a conniving mariposo instead of his wife of 20 years...but never mind.

-----------------------
update: Archbishop Chaput reminds the Vatican (and MSM):

n mastering nature for the purpose of human development, we human beings have wounded our oceans and the air we breathe. We’ve poisoned the human body with contraceptives. And we’ve scrambled the understanding of our own sexuality. In the name of individual fulfillment, we’ve busied ourselves with creating a new Babel of tyranny that feeds our desires but starves the soul.
Paragraphs 7-10 of the Instrumentum did a good job of describing the condition of today’s families. But overall, the text engenders a subtle hopelessness. This leads to a spirit of compromise with certain sinful patterns of life and the reduction of Christian truths about marriage and sexuality to a set of beautiful ideals — which then leads to surrendering the redemptive mission of the Church.
The work of this synod needs to show much more confidence in the Word of God, the transformative power of grace, and the ability of people to actually live what the Church believes. And it should honor the heroism of abandoned spouses who remain faithful to their vows and the teaching of the Church. …
We need to call people to perseverance in grace and to trust in the greatness God intended for them — not confirm them in their errors. Marriage embodies Christian hope – hope made flesh and sealed permanently in the love of a man and a woman.
This synod needs to preach that truth more clearly with the radical passion of the Cross and Resurrection.


bloggers vs Dan Rather

The lawyer who saw the font problems with the Dan Rather pushed memo is interviewed here.

ah but the movie pretends otherwise. Fiction.

The point here is that the internet caught the minor problem with the fonts (a technical point) which quickly was discussed and other people with expertise pointed out more technical problems with the so called memo.

One interesting thing here is that a group of people with different areas of arcane expertise could discuss and detect problems with the memo.

Back then I posted on my blog that a similar dicussion on line was needed for medical papers.

Often we doctors had something called "journal rounds" where we discussed journal articles, often picking out problems in the studies and noting other articles that agreed or disagreed with what was printed.

Yet to get these things pointed out, it meant writing a letter to the editor and waiting six weeks to see IF it would be published.

Yes, nowadays on line letters to the editor are faster, but unlike blogs you don't discuss the article because you don't go back and get a ping that someone answered you or agreed with you.

and to make things worse, often these journals are behind a firewall: no subscription, no reading the details. So you only have a news report and/or maybe access to a summary on the journal webpage.

So why isn't the internet being utilized for peer review of medical articles? Because we dumb GP's don't know anything...just like why should a dumb lawyer know more about fonts than Dan Rather?

Maybe if we docs could discuss things on line this way, more problems would be found faster, and more side effects of drugs be noted.

Monday, October 12, 2015

Mark your calenders

October 15 is Global Handwashing day

more HERE

and then there is this:

Hygiene refers to acts that can lead to good health and cleanliness, such as frequent handwashing, face washing, and bathing with soap and water. Keeping hands clean is one of the most important ways to prevent the spread of infection and illness. However, in many areas of the world, practicing personal hygiene is difficult due to lack of resources such as clean water and soap. Many diseases (including diarrheal diseases) can be spread when hands, face, and body are not washed appropriately at the key times.

one of the outreach works we did in Africa 40 years ago was to provide (shallow) wells for villages, so that during the dry season moms did not have to walk a mile to get water.

of course, to have safe drinking water, you need a filter or a deep well.

But that is another story...